Hm... the exit polls showed the overall result touch and go despite a rise from 12 to 18% in the DPP vote. That part seems likely to be achived, but the wider question still unanswered.
Nice BBC story about Scots at Waterloo and the first-hand accounts they left of the battle. Plus delightful, sub-Wilfred-Owen poetry. All left me wondering the type of question the PB-brainhive might be good at:
What are the earliest battles we have "everyman" eye-witnesses for? We have accounts of the Battle of Hastings, but nowt from the point of view of Edric The English Archer.
Often the final survivors played but peripheral roles, may never have reached an actual battlefield or even fired a shot in anger if they did. Yet it's interesting there were survivors of the French Revolution about in the 1880s, and of the Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812 to the turn of the century. The Texas Revolution and Bear Flag Revolt a few years later still. For comparison, the oldest surviving phonographs basically date from the 1880s (with the odd earlier recordings on tinfoil or phonautograph being exceptionally difficult to replay), but I doubt a "grunt's-eye-view of oral history" was one of the top priorities for the earliest recordists.
Going further, for what events do we have first-hand testimony on-screen (film or TV footage)? The last survivors of the Crimean War and War of Italian Unification were still around in the 1930s. The Zulu War, The Paris Commune, Franco-Prussian War and the US Civil War can take us through to the 40s and 50s. The Boer War, in theory, up to 1993. I've certainly seen and been very moved by TV interviews with WWI survivors and Russian Revolutionaries, and heard audio of US Civil War vets (and former slaves). Just how far back can we go?
The best is James Lee Milne recounting meeting a very old lady in the 1920s, who told him "my first husband's first wife's first husband knew Cromwell very well, and said he was a much-maligned man."
@MyBurningEars N A M Roger's account of The Georgian Navy which covered the 18th Century suggested that printed recall notices were used, and enough of the crew were able to read them. Such notices were a comparatively effective way of communication.
That's very interesting. Wonder if any of them wrote up their memoirs. By the 19th century there's certainly some interesting material (not just from the navy, but also e.g. on whaling).
Sadly as a witness he couldn't remember much about the incident ... except that he was very concerned for the health of Booth, who had jumped off the balcony and hurt his leg. He hadn't realised that the president had been shot.
Thanks for that. There's a rather funny one a few pages in: "Teen-age gangs: a great reporter reveals the truth about girl gangs and how they co-operate with the boys".
Let's see. 1920 was 262 years after Cromwell's death. Say she was 110 at the time, takes us back to 1810. Say her husband was 40 years older than her, 1770. Say his wife was 40 years older than him, 1730. And her husband was 40 years older than her, 1690. Still doesn't get the birth of the oldest within 30 years of Cromwell's death in 1658. Hmm.
Let's see. 1920 was 262 years after Cromwell's death. Say she was 110 at the time, takes us back to 1810. Say her husband was 40 years older than her, 1770. Say his wife was 40 years older than him, 1730. And her husband was 40 years older than her, 1690. Still doesn't get the birth of the oldest within 30 years of Cromwell's death in 1658. Hmm.
I think it's based on a series of marriages between teens and people in their late 80s.
Let's see. 1920 was 262 years after Cromwell's death. Say she was 110 at the time, takes us back to 1810. Say her husband was 40 years older than her, 1770. Say his wife was 40 years older than him, 1730. And her husband was 40 years older than her, 1690. Still doesn't get the birth of the oldest within 30 years of Cromwell's death in 1658. Hmm.
I think it's based on a series of marriages between teens and people in their late 80s.
It would have to be that for the sums to work. But then it is a cheat, as the strong tacit implication is that the lady in question is offering some first hand experience, i.e. that she knew her first husband's first wife's first husband, which she clearly could not have.
Let's see. 1920 was 262 years after Cromwell's death. Say she was 110 at the time, takes us back to 1810. Say her husband was 40 years older than her, 1770. Say his wife was 40 years older than him, 1730. And her husband was 40 years older than her, 1690. Still doesn't get the birth of the oldest within 30 years of Cromwell's death in 1658. Hmm.
I think it's based on a series of marriages between teens and people in their late 80s.
It would have to be that for the sums to work. But then it is a cheat, as the strong tacit implication is that the lady in question is offering some first hand experience, i.e. that she knew her first husband's first wife's first husband, which she clearly could not have.
A man of my acquaintance was addressed, when a child, on the subject of Oliver Cromwell. The speaker was a lady of 91. She told him sternly never to speak ill of the great man. She went on: "My husband's first wife's first husband knew Oliver Cromwell - and liked him well." It was an admonition my friend has not forgotten.
At first hearing, the story is unbelievable. This was not a great-grandfather who knew a great-grandson. Here at the dawn of the new century is someone able to recall a single matrimonial generation linked directly with the mid-17th century*. I know of no comparable leap of history, no domestic arrangement that can gather dynasties, revolutions and empires so effortlessly in its embrace. We can wipe out civilisations in a flash, yet extend the experience of a single human imagination over a third of a millennium. What a thing is man (and in this case woman).
*The remark was made in 1923 by a lady born in 1832. At the age of 16 she had married an 80-year-old man named Henry. Sixty-four years earlier, in 1784, the young Henry had, for reasons obscure, married an 82-year-old woman. Her first marriage, in 1720, was to an 80-year-old who had served Cromwell before his death in 1658.
I remain skeptical. But not completely implausible. What adds to the fascination is that James Lee Milne who heard this story lived until 1998!
A rather more traditional "how many handshakes into the past" game was played out on Crooked Timber a few years back.
@BBCNormanS: Scotland First Minister @NicolaSturgeon writes to PM demanding re-think over "peverse" decision to scrap wind farm subsidies
Given that these subsidies are one of the very few benefits Scotland gets from the National Infrastructure Plan (cost to Scotland over £3bn per annum, benefit less than £200m per annum), it is indeed perverse.
Another own goal for Cameron.
And terrible news for consumers facing even more high cost electric reliance on nuclear in future instead of cheap and getting cheaper wind power.
If the subsidies are costing Scotland net £2.8bn, why is it an own goal for him to scrap them?
The National Infrastructure Plan costs Scotland £3bn. This is substantially more than wind subsidies. Wind subsidies are one of the very few ways Scotland gets even than shabby £200m back.
So how do you think EU finances work ? Take from the wealthy Scottish nation and redistribute in poor southern Europe?
There are anti-science views on both sides of the political spectrum. The religious right has scientifically-unsound objections to evolution and research on stem cells; the eco-left has scientifically-unsound objections to GMOs, genetic engineering and vaccination.
Up there with the all time stupidest political decisions. To throw away their best presenter and the person who produced a coherent manifesto. Madness. I hope after a break, the Conservatives are able to attract her back.
I only caught a few minutes of the DP interview earlier, and she was quite good but, perhaps, a little too forthrightly truthful in answers to questions.
They most certainly are, in practice as well as in most international legal definitions:
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines child as "a human being below the age of 18 years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier".
Comments
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3130238/Sixteen-seventeen-year-olds-certain-vote-EU-referendum-plans-hatched-Lords.html
(The audio oral history for the US Civil War seems to be much better.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6jSqt39vFM
Things haven't changed much in 61 years ...
Let's see. 1920 was 262 years after Cromwell's death. Say she was 110 at the time, takes us back to 1810. Say her husband was 40 years older than her, 1770. Say his wife was 40 years older than him, 1730. And her husband was 40 years older than her, 1690. Still doesn't get the birth of the oldest within 30 years of Cromwell's death in 1658. Hmm.
PB constitutional lawyers?
http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/passage-bill/commons/coms-consideration-of-amendments/
http://health.spectator.co.uk/roll-of-shame-mps-who-back-homeopathy-fan-david-tredinnick-for-chair-of-commons-health-committee/
Quite a few right wingers on that list. Is there a correlation between right wing politicians and anti-science beliefs such as belief in homeopathy and climate change scepticism?
But what is a medical doctor, Dr Poulter, doing on that list
http://www.kmdvalg.dk/fv/2015/F702.htm
Oliver the Timelord
A man of my acquaintance was addressed, when a child, on the subject of Oliver Cromwell. The speaker was a lady of 91. She told him sternly never to speak ill of the great man. She went on: "My husband's first wife's first husband knew Oliver Cromwell - and liked him well." It was an admonition my friend has not forgotten.
At first hearing, the story is unbelievable. This was not a great-grandfather who knew a great-grandson. Here at the dawn of the new century is someone able to recall a single matrimonial generation linked directly with the mid-17th century*. I know of no comparable leap of history, no domestic arrangement that can gather dynasties, revolutions and empires so effortlessly in its embrace. We can wipe out civilisations in a flash, yet extend the experience of a single human imagination over a third of a millennium. What a thing is man (and in this case woman).
*The remark was made in 1923 by a lady born in 1832. At the age of 16 she had married an 80-year-old man named Henry. Sixty-four years earlier, in 1784, the young Henry had, for reasons obscure, married an 82-year-old woman. Her first marriage, in 1720, was to an 80-year-old who had served Cromwell before his death in 1658.
I remain skeptical. But not completely implausible. What adds to the fascination is that James Lee Milne who heard this story lived until 1998!
A rather more traditional "how many handshakes into the past" game was played out on Crooked Timber a few years back.
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